Stories by Author Shelby Radford Blogged Here First

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Detective Brightside and The Case of Blossoming Silhouettes

By Author Shelby Radford

ONE

Raindrops pounded the roof stirring the dreams of five-year-old Mathew Bridges. He slowly woke rubbing the sleep from his almond-shaped eyes, forcing the sleepiness out of his hands and feet. He yawned swinging his feet over his teddy bear house slippers making sure to line up his jump off the bed to land right in place in his slippers. He did so, making the landing perfect with a small thud. He walked over to the wall that housed his navy and white striped terry clothes robe, admiring his dinosaur wallpaper. His mom let him pick it out. He loved dinosaurs and this navy blue with orange and green Tyrannosaurus rex and Brontosaurus made him so happy. He remembered his mom purchased the wallpaper that day with workmen putting it up the next day. Mathew picked his robe off the wall hook and put it on still smiling to himself about the fond memory. He opened his bedroom door and headed downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. He creaked down the old Victorian staircase making sure to carefully hold on to the handrail like he was taught taking each step one at a time. Once he reached the bottom step he hopped to the ground with both teddy bear-slipper feet and let out a little giggle. The bottom half of the house was surprisingly quiet for a Friday morning family breakfast. Mathew slid his slipper feet across the wood floor past the sofa where he found his older sister who was still asleep. She must have had a late night last night and fell asleep in the living room so she didn’t wake up Mom and Dad. He kissed the top of his sister’s head, then patted her sweetly with his little hand, and turned his focus back to the kitchen for breakfast. The grumble of his tummy was becoming louder. In the kitchen, Mathew saw his father at the kitchen table. His head was lying down on the table, and his mother was lying on the floor the wall phone was off the hook hanging from the cord, he could still hear the 911 operator,

                “Hello, ma’am you still there? Help is on its way! Hello! Hello!”

                Mathew looked again at his father, his mother, and back at his sister. He closed his eyes and opened them again. He could now hear the police sirens outside. He shuffled his slippers over to the table and pulled a chair over to the counter so he could stand on it. He reached for his favorite cereal, poured him a bowl, sat at the table next to his dad, and began eating his cereal. This was exactly the scene the police found except he was having breakfast with his entire family that was just murdered. The Jefferson County Police Department had never seen anything like this before. The five-year-old sat next to his father eating his coco puffs while his father bled from both his missing eyes and a slit throat. His mother was strangled to death with the phone cord then shot execution-style in the back of the head and his sixteen-year-old sister was shot point-blank in the middle of the forehead. Everyone was at a loss for words for this child. Was he in complete shock that he didn’t know his family was dead? A psychologist talked to Mathew that day back at the precinct. It was discovered he suffered from something rare, it’s called a Brightside break. A person or a child can suffer from something so traumatic that the connection between what they visually see that is so gruesome or horrific will look alright and have a “bright side” effect. So, he saw his Dad asleep at the kitchen table, no blood, no missing eyes. He only saw his sister asleep on the sofa, with no wound on her forehead. Same for his mother. This phenomenon uniquely earned him the nickname Brightside and eventually, he became Detective Brightside.